Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09HANOI807
2009-09-01 10:12:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Hanoi
Cable title:  

Police Detain Journalist Affiliated with Arrested Hanoi

Tags:  PHUM PREL PGOV VM 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO5900
OO RUEHDT RUEHHM RUEHPB
DE RUEHHI #0807 2441012
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O R 011012Z SEP 09
FM AMEMBASSY HANOI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0100
INFO ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM COLLECTIVE
RUEHHI/AMEMBASSY HANOI
RUEHHM/AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH CITY 0014
C O N F I D E N T I A L HANOI 000807 

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 2019/09/01
TAGS: PHUM PREL PGOV VM
SUBJECT: Police Detain Journalist Affiliated with Arrested Hanoi
Blogger

REF: HANOI 805

CLASSIFIED BY: Harry Kamian, Political Counselor; REASON: 1.4(B),(D)

C O N F I D E N T I A L HANOI 000807

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 2019/09/01
TAGS: PHUM PREL PGOV VM
SUBJECT: Police Detain Journalist Affiliated with Arrested Hanoi
Blogger

REF: HANOI 805

CLASSIFIED BY: Harry Kamian, Political Counselor; REASON: 1.4(B),(D)


1. (C) A journalist and editor from the popular online news
website VietNamNet, Pham Doan Trang, was taken into police custody
August 29 for activities connected with Hanoi blogger Bui Thanh
Hieu's plot to print T-shirts with anti-China slogans (reftel).
VietNamNet's owner, Nguyen Anh Tuan was informed August 31 of Ms.
Trang's detention and told that it had nothing to do with any of
the articles that Trang and written or edited, according to a
high-level VietNamNet employee. One of Hieu's associates,
dissident lawyer Le Quoc Quan (protect) told us that Hieu and Trang
had at one time been romantically involved, and that Hieu had asked
Trang to act as an intermediary in passing the money along for the
T-shirts to be printed.




2. (C) COMMENT: Although Trang may have played a supporting role
in the T-shirt episode, she has not shied away from sensitive
topics in her own reporting. In July, for example, she wrote a
piece examining the conduct of Vietnam's leaders during the 1954
Geneva Accords. She has also recently written about China's
territorial claims in the South China Sea, a sore nerve for many in
Vietnam's Party and government. END COMMENT.
MICHALAK